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Saturday, June 15, 2013

What Shall I Write About?

A question every blogger is facing from time to time, is what he can write about. I usually try to look back to the past day or the one still being in the future. And sometimes I conjure up a topic from the news or, opposite, from history.

So let’s see what it will be today.So what’s up out here? Besides of a whole lot of business preparations nothing of essence has happened. But those business preparations have sure kept me running and it’s just about starting to go into the even more serious phase of cranking up operations. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been too friendly.Where is my favorite Campobello summer weather? It is now that we realize how fortunate we have been those past years when summer started in the beginning of May. Bea’s garden is about 1 month behind, and she has been nurturing tiny small plants of peas and tomatoes by bringing them inside the house overnight. I wonder what the hummingbirds are thinking of all this cold weather. I know that if I was a hummingbird I would probably stay farther south and maybe never come back.

Surprisingly, the first tourists have arrived, well not really the first but at least the first in noticeable numbers. Down at the International Bridge there is a lot of work going on. Last time I got across, they had rigged up a giant sandblasting unit, mounted it on a long semitrailer. They are actually working UNDER the bridge, and I really wonder how the weather is impacting their work. Winds can get pretty strong along “The Narrows” and for the life of me I can’t imagine hanging under the bridge doing some sandblasting. But then i guess these brave souls are paid a little more than minimum wage. :-)

Tonight I have no pictures of these guys, but I will see whether I can get some in a few days. I wonder whether they work on Saturdays?Hanse Port, Lübeck and the city in the 17th century Office building Antwerpen

Anyway, since the bridge leads over to Lubec, ME I remember that I wanted to tell you about the name of this town. Even though it looks like Lubec is a French name they say it is not. The mother town of this little coastal “Downeast” community is in northern Germany and called Lübeck. That makes me having a special relation to it, as I was born just about 70 or so kms north of Lübeck. Lübeck, Germany is a very old coastal city chosen by medieval merchants for its ideal location at the Baltic Sea. To secure their trading area they founded the Hanseatic Trade and City Union. German cities like Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Stralsund, Rostock belonged to it. But also Riga,(Latvia) Brügge and Antwerpen(Belgium) and even Bergen, (Norway) were cities belonging to the Trade Union. Securing their trade interests around the coast of the Baltic Sea was the main reason. History speaks of about 200 towns and cities, everyone located at the coast, belonging to the Hanseatic Union. From being a pure trade union it emerged into a powerful political union using the seas as their playground. To me this union has a clear parallel to today’s EU or European Union, which began as a trade union after WWII. Old Hanseatic buildings in Bergen, Norway

Let’s get back to Lubec. The settlers who finally founded this town were not German. They were French. And here history blurs the picture a bit. Lubec is missing the “k” at the end. If a Frenchman would write the German town name he would probably have it end with a “c” only. It’s like “Quebec”.

But there is more to it.

The area contains many French names like Calais and St. Croix River. French settlers may have had a different understanding of the German name and made the name into “LeBec” which means “The Beak” or on a map a protruding point. Other names supporting this theory ending on “bec” are Kennebec and Sebec (lakes in Maine).

Very old town papers of 1811 contain “Lübeck” as the town’s name.

A sailor on the Barque “Abo” which was engaged in the Baltic trade, said the town looked very much like Lübeck, Germany, where the Barque had called on it’s voyage coming from Finland.

While the town generally has accepted the German version as their original name the real root of Lubec remains as a topic open for discussion.

Whatever it is, the town, formerly dependent on fisheries, has morphed into a place of interest for tourists seeking to escape the heat of more southerly locations. And that should be enough for today’s post, otherwise you’d be falling asleep again.